I realize this is really late. I don't know why I didn't write it sooner.

For those of you who don't know who SWERY is, he worked with Access Games to create one of my favorite games--certainly my most favorite in recent memory. SWERY directed what should by all accounts have been a bad game.

And it was.

I think I'm getting ahead of myself, though.

Deadly Premonition is a budget title for the Xbox 360, a console I don't even own. And it is a bad game.

The enemies, while cool at first, get old really fast. There are maybe 2 different types of enemies in the entire game. Fights against them are long and tedious battles of attrition. Playing the game on any difficulty harder than EASY is merely a test of patience because the changes only amount to an increase in enemy health.

The game isn't exactly a dream to control either. The main game plays like Resident Evil 4, which isn't too bad, but the driving segments are too sensitive to control effectively.

And the game is plagued with odd design decisions. The game is chock full of QTEs and there are segments that go on for way too long. There's fishing, racing, darts--all contained in what amounts to an extremely linear, insane story with only one ending.

I loved every moment of it.

And--get this--I haven't even played the game. Ever.

This game is bad--I'll let that sink in--and I whole-heartedly recommend this to anyone with a 360. It's only $20.00 after all, and it's a 20 hour game if you take your time. That's half as long as Final Fantasy XIII and this is only on one disk.

Go ahead. Buy it now. I'll wait.

My first glimpse of the game was really a spontaneous thing. I was at a friend's house and while I played his copy of Mario Galaxy 2, he started up this video that he had found. It was the first part of a Giant Bomb Endurance Run of the game as played by Brad and Ryan.

The game opens up with a poor rendering of a forest clearing. The geometry and textures could have been done easily by the PS2 and the people (though detailed) were pretty uncanny valley material. A pair of twins and their grandpa find the body of a girl basically crucified onto a tree and kicking of the murder mystery extravaganza.

You play as Agent Francis York Morgan ("Call me York. That's what everyone calls me."), an FBI Agent who was called into the town of Greenvale to investigate the murder. Sounds pretty standard. What isn't standard is how he's introduced.

Imagine a man in a suit driving. He's talking to someone on the phone. He's typing on his laptop's keyboard. And he's smoking. At the same time. He talks to his caller about the codependent relationship between Tom and Jerry. Yes, I'm talking about the cartoon characters.

After his call is cut off, he begins to talk to Zach. Only, he's alone in the car. He's not on the phone anymore. He has an entire conversation with this Zach and no one ever replies to anything he says.

York makes this game. He is probably the single best video game protagonist ever.

In fact, this game has an amazing cast. While the motion capture is iffy at best, the characters are voiced amazingly well, and their faces can be very expressive--from York's shit-eating grin to love-interest Emily's angry-face. The characters are extremely well-written. There's not much that can cheer up your day like driving in a car with York talking to Zach (you) about classic films like Jaws and the Breakfast club. You can't help but feel happy for York when he finally realizes his feelings for Emily--and when she reciprocates.

I said the story was insane. It is. But it's also extremely touching as we learn about York's tragic backstory and as he grows closer to Emily. We learn about the history of the town and how it has drawn York into it to finally lay his past to rest.

You know, I mentioned this was a mystery, but I never elaborated, really. York is on a hunt for the Raincoat Killer, a killer wearing a bright red raincoat that comes out only when it rains--when everybody in town fears to leave their homes. The game isn't afraid to let you hunt for clues even without continuing the story. The game has several NPCs--all of which have their own side-missions. These side-missions expand upon the personalities and relationships between these characters, making the town seem full of life. You get to know these characters. You'll hate some. You'll love some. But they'll be real. And you can peer into their windows and see what they do when York is out and about. Some merely read or cook. Others prance around in women's clothing in front of mirrors while singing. And every model of car has it's own unique license plate, like "VIDGMES" or "SPYFCTN". And the clues are hidden everywhere.

The ending is intense. The last 5 hours of the actual story had me on the edge of my seat. I wasn't just invested--I couldn't keep myself from watching it. It was beautiful. It made me feel shocked, sad, surprised, amazed, angry, incredulous. Some parts made me laugh. Others made me tear up. Still others made me cheer.

I've said that this is a bad game. It has bad controls, bad graphics, bad gameplay, odd design. You could add it all up and say that the sum total is a bad game. But this game is more than the sum of its parts. I don't like this game ironically. It is pure, unironic love. It has such amazing charm for a game made by a small developer and it outshines so many mainstream games in my eyes.

I said it earlier. Play this game. If you can get past it's extremely noticeable flaws I can guarantee you'll see why I love it so much. I haven't played the game, as I've said, but I've spent over 60 hours on it. I watched 3 completely different playthroughs of the game (some several times) online. Each of them lasted 20 hours. All 3 were played without any real knowledge of the game other than it was bad. Most of the players came out of it liking (if not loving) the game.

SWERY, I hope you make so many more games and I wish you success in all of them. If only you'd release a PS3 version in the US, I would totally buy it.

So, in addition to the original Nanami (who seems to have been superceded now), there are five new moe Windows 7 girls around. They don't seem to talk as much as Nanami does, but they all have two unique wallpapers each as well as a shared group picture.